Organizational culture is a very unique way of cooperation between people inside of the company as was said by Ralph Kilmann “The culture captures everyone’s drive and imagination. As the reward systems, policies and work procedures are formally documented, they suggest what kinds of behavior and attitudes are important for success” (Corporate Culture, 1985) so the good example of organization with such such organization is Patagonia which is an American company that specializes on making clothing. The company was found by Yvon Chouinard in 1973, Chouinard was a professional climber and he was selling climbing products since 1957. After the opening of the first store, Patagonia was growing up and developed from a small climbing store in the Venture city, California to the huge company with under 2500 employees worldwide and different outdoor sports clothing products. Patagonia is a great example of a company with strong organizational culture. O’Reilly describes culture as “Culture is critical in developing and maintaining levels of intensity and dedication among employees that often characterizes successful firms.” (O’Reilly, 1989 ) Culture is important so let’s start from the understanding of how organizational culture can be seen in Patagonia by following Scheins model of organizational culture which consist of 3 levels such as Artifacts, Values and Assumed Values.
Artifacts according to Schein “The first level is the characteristics of the organization which can be easily viewed, heard and felt by individuals collectively known as artifacts.” (Schein, 2004) In Patagonia artifacts are showed as emblems on their clothes and the way company want there employees to look like “We are, after all, an outdoor company. We would not staff our trade show booth with a bunch of out-of-shape guys wearing white shirts, ties, and suspenders any more than a doctor would let his receptionist smoke in the office.”(Patagonia, 2018) Which means that all Patagonia employees are the representatives of there company and they want to mention that by emblems on the clothes and the way people look like. Another big thing with artifacts is a building structure. In Patagonia there are open doors and huge windows in the Ventura office as can be seen on photos, which basically shows the openness and equality of everyone who works there and respect to the nature by reducing electricity waste with huge windows. Another big visual thing is mission of Patagonia, which is “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” (Patagonia, 2018) This mission statement describes the way company relates to the nature and reduce everything that can be bad for the environment, but still makes an amazing products. Every year Patagonia donates 1% of there income for the organization that help safe the nature. This is very important artifact, because if you don’t like the mission of the company, you cannot become apart of it.
The next important part of the organizational culture are Values. According to Schein “These are the public statements about what the organisational values are about and by which the organisation conducts its business.” ( Schein, 2004) In Patagonia on of the most valuable things are people that work in the company. Company wants there employees to be as “So we seek out “dirtbags” who feel more at home in a base camp or on the river than they do in the office. All the better if they have excellent qualifications for whatever job we hire them for, but we’ll often take a risk on an itinerant rock climber that we wouldn’t on a run-of-the-mill MBA.” (Patagonia, 2018) People and there unity is a very important part of the organization, because everything is based on relationships between people within organization as was said by Emmanuel Ogbonna “with disagreement on whether organisational culture can be intentionally changed (Ogbonna, 1992). So basically any misunderstanding in the mission of the company can change the culture. This is why in Patagonia the most valuable are people with patient to outdoor activities, such as climbing, camping, surfing, etc. Ones company finds people who share the same idea, they will make everything possible for this person to feel comfortable. Even while the difficult times happened and crisis in 2008, Patagonia still made everything possible to save there employees and provide them with health care, child care and training development. Another thing that is very valuable for Patagonia is harmony with nature and respect to the environment “the materials and methods we use to make our products, taking responsibility for the entire lifecycle of our products and examining how we use resources at our buildings and facilities”(Patagonia, 2018)Company since the foundation was trying to prevent harm to the nature by making products from vegan materials, supporting grassroots activists for 40 years, making the recycling or repair of there products as mentioned on there website. Patagonia always promote this trend of been ecological friendly to other companies all over the world.
The last and the deepest part of culture is Assumed Values, which are basically the foundation of each company. Assumed Values according to Schein “There are beliefs and facts which stay hidden but do affect the culture of the organization.” ( Schein, 2004) This is the most hidden part of organizational culture, because those are things that you cannot see easily, this is more about the way people act inside of the organization. In Patagonia Assumed Values is hard to find without actual working in the company for a bit of time, but through the research can be seen that each person that works in Patagonia has a power to speak from the name of company. Danielle Egge is one of Patagonia’s employees from 2010 year said “I work for Patagonia because in the most real way you can trust that the product and the stories we tell are honest, upright and conscientious. I also work for Patagonia because I have absolutely no problem using “we” when I talk about the company” (Danielle Egge, 2017) So basically each person feel so much relaxed and comfortable inside of the company as well as united with ideas of other employees that can speak from the company.
In conclusion Patagonia is a company that is a great example of what organizational culture looks like. It has a lot of very interesting artifacts, such as no doors, big windows, comfortable clothes with no requirements for it. The mission statement is clearly showing the difference of Patagonia from different clothing companies and makes it very comfortable to work there for people with love to outdoor activities and to those who respect nature and care about the environment. Values that are shared in the company are very respectful, because Patagonia cares the most about there employees. Ones they find a person that will share the same ideas and beliefs as company does, Patagonia will make everything possible to create an amazing working environment with healthcare, childcare and trainings provided for there employees even in a hard times for the company. Company values nature and makes everything possible to create the best products by causing as minimum damage as possible. Patagonia respect different ideas and call itself as a company that turns left, when others turn right. Even Assumed Values show that everyone inside of the company feel so confident that each one can speak from the company name itself.